The Cheat Sheet took the week off to spend some time with friends and family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Hopefully I can help offer you some post-Black Friday fantasy deals to save you a few bucks. Speaking of getting players on a discount, not all sales are worth it. But I'll get to that later...
In the mean time, we're riding the wave of trying to predict unexpected performances like Mike White's 315-yard, three-TD game against the Bears last week or Josh Jacobs's monster 303 total yard performance that also included two scores, six receptions and a whopping 11 first downs (shout-out to SFB scoring).
I tend to have a “stick with the one who brought you” approach in the second half of the season. Am I really going to take a chance on Jelani Woods after his eight receptions and 98 yards in Week 13 after getting the goose-egg from Juwan Johnson? Not that Johnson has been incredible, but he's been pretty good the past month.
Sure, there are exceptions— the performance that first comes to mind is former Chiefs RB Larry Johnson coming on strong to close out the 2004 season after starter Priest Holmes went down with an injury. Through eight games, Holmes had over 1,000 total yards and 15 TDs. Johnson picked up right where he left off with 781 total yards and 11 TDs over the final six weeks of the season. How do you identify when a player like that is coming? I suppose it helps if the starter is producing at a near-Hall of Fame level. One could assume the offense is just that good. Maybe those years felt more exciting because there wasn't an army of internet fantasy nerds dissecting every backup. Because it certainly felt more random and specific to that version of the NFL. Two weeks ago, I did recommend you pounce on Isiah Pacheco and that's borne out since then. He's been really good.
Hopefully we can identify any hot closers and separate them from the "just another guy" classification.
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